Letting Go of Same Old Same Old

Taking advantage of neuroplasticity involves change. That's what neuroplasticity is—change: the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections, allowing for neurons to compensate for injury and disease and to adjust their activities in response to new situations or circumstances in their environment. 

Those in the process of deliberate neural rewiring are often encouraged to alter daily routines as a way to assist the brain in changing habitual neural patterns, for example by taking a different route from usual or doing tasks with their non-dominant hand. They are also encouraged to modify their surroundings in some way, perhaps by rearranging furniture, to give an added symbolic and visual indicator of the activated process of internal change.

Speaking of change, Dave and I decided in late December to take advantage of my being away in Virginia to go ahead with existing plans to renovate my study, so not only did I arrive home Friday to discover Christmas decorations still in place but also to this:

my study, ordinarily the absolute hub of all executive systems
and the place in which I meet with tutees

my art studio, now the repository
for some of my displaced systems

art studio, different view

guest room; more displaced items

and more

and more

The day I arrived home we also discovered water puddled in the cabinet space underneath the kitchen sink, so we pulled everything out of that space and put it elsewhere, and we haven't been able to use the sink for two days.

I am rockin' change, I tell ya—no more same old same old for me.

Dave is rewiring my study; I'm rewiring my brain.

Think of the new neurons! the new synapses! the new dendrites!